The Primer
Nez Chronicles was the temporary name for a rp-verse created by one jackass with the help of about four people, that eventually sprawled out into a proper fictional universe after said jackass was left to his own devices after everyone else left. Now helped more distantly by 1-2 new people. It has since been renamed to the Aenverse, but many a remnant to the works' old names hang around. This page is arranged in such a way as to be mostly bullet-lists or short paragraphs, so we can get important elements across quickly without getting caught up in details. The cat loves his damn lists. There are full pages or sections ON full pages that go into more detail about most things on this primer, you'll have to look around for them if you want to know more. Or ask for them. This page is subject to change as the setting evolves further. The World Imagine a world much like Earth. Now imagine it had a more oxygen-rich atmosphere, was significantly larger, had two moons flying around it, and itself orbited a blue star far enough to be quite cold just, all the time. You get the basic gist of how Aen - the primary world in this universe - works, on the astronomical and geophysical levels. Now imagine on top of that it also was populated by human lookalikes and furred folk with natural elemental powers fueled by their biology, giant man-eating birds of prey that can themselves become human, and that the whole thing was lorded over by the literal avatar of the very same star mentioned earlier, who is basically god over their star’s entire sphere of influence, down to manipulating entire planets on a huge scale. Now you have a small look into how the rest of it works. There are 16 months in an Aen year, which alternate between 30 and 31 days, each of which is 34 hours long. The closer moon has an orbital period of just under 25 days, the farther one has an orbital period that shifts between 90-110 over time. The Aen year begins at exactly mid-winter. *Territories **Royal Territories - The remaining extent of a former empire that got broken apart about 800 years ago. Now stands as an absolute monarchy over its home continent - most of it, anyway. Lots of non-japan asian theming, at least aesthetically. **Islands - A scattered series of islands standing between the two continents, with only a vague governing body in the form of one of the lesser deities. Vague, but very respected in its few mandates. Its loose governance means a lot of resort locations can set up here and do basically whatever they want, within reason. **Mountains - The direct opposite of the previous. A set of 11 smaller territories that consider themselves part of one great whole, and completely control the mountains of the northern half of their landmass. A heavy emphasis on defense of home and nation has led to a huge militia population. Imagine Russian climate coupled with imperial Japan nationalism and isolationism and you have a vague idea. **"Human Territories" - An outdated name for the other territory on the Mountains' continent. Its name used to be appropriate, since this territory is where the human populace used to congregate in mass for whatever reason, but globalization has led to that becoming a thing of the past over a century ago. **Kalenda - A series of islands suspended in the air through ancient magic and connected through elaborate infrastructure. Inhabited by airship operators and traders looking to get away from international regulations without getting directly involved in globally illegal affairs. Many of its current trader-smuggler populace also used to be involved in direct piracy, but this stopped happening as it became obvious just how much safer it is to not make a living attacking people who have grown increasingly intent on firing back. *Contested/Minor Territories **The Cross - A massive DMZ between the Mountains and the Human Territories - and if they're not fighting over it, they're making sure the other doesn't get to put anything there. Its complete lack of an overseeing body means that despite how often it's hammered by fighting, it's still an ideal place for those with less than savory practices to do their work. **Gazo - The prospective name for a section of Royal Territory whose nobles have begun a direct separatist motion, to allow their own less-than-desireable business to continue. Pretty much every local territory has been keeping an eye on them just in case they actually try something - though who's to say they aren't already. *The Moons **Dendria - The smaller and closer of the two, this moon is blanketed in vegetation. There's a single city here, populated by the xenophobic locals, who live in constant danger of the beasts in the woodlands outside their wall. **Nokomis - The larger and farther-out of the two. Basically hell. Let's leave it at that. *Other **The wilderness - Outside of the populated territories of the world is relatively lawless territory that's sparsely populated, as far as people know. All kinds of potential out there. *Historical events worth knowing about **The Ilian Crusade - The pushback war led against the former empire mentioned earlier, run just under 800 years ago and led by the woman who would eventually form the Royal Territories' current autocracy. **The Fall - The destruction of a precursor society by a mad and desperate "god" just over 12000 years ago, leading to the near loss of an entire magical artform and the near-extinction of one of the races. The People As mentioned before, you have a mostly-furry populace with the occasional humanoid at basest level. Beyond that things get weirder, both in the subspecies range of the basic group, and in regards of the other species milling about. *Base Species **Typical local furs are considered the Aen Standard, because they're the baseline against which just about everything else is compared due to their population dominance. Anything native that's not human, Aritarus or another species altogether falls into here. ***Due to their capacity for venerability and strength Dragons are under consideration for being called a subspecies. **'Humans' are exactly what they sound like. That's about it. **'Aritarus' are a two-foot-tall, winged branch off the Standard that was brought about by some mage for nefarious purposes, but they escaped and now they're actually part of the community. *Universal subspecies of the above **'Seraphim' are people without avian ancestry who nonetheless have feathered wings. **'Fiends '''are in the same camp as Seraphim, with bat- or dragon-like wings without any ancestry to suggest their presence. They also develop horns even if they wouldn't have normally for their base species. **'Raised''' are, for lack of a better term, undead. Someone down the line discovered that if you blast a dead body with enough raw mana it'll get back on its feet, though not strictly as the same person. **'Vampires,' at least the non-supernatural variety, are people mutated by a sort of transformative venom that vampires produce and can apply at will. Sure, they live longer by default, but they also get an irreparable blood addiction, horrible sun sensitivity, and an allergy to garlic and onion. **'Elderblooded' are normal people with strong enough ties to ancient magic to have a natural proficiency, and without the modern propensity to keel over dying from heavy mana exposure. Oh yeah that's a thing. **'Tetraphys' are an ageless artificial subspecies, created by an ancient mage deity and meant to be potent magic users in themselves, who could integrate "worthy people" into their number - who were then turned upon when they didn't do what said deity expected/wanted. Now an endangered species, with only 80 or so members left among all of them. They too aren't victimized by mana exposure. *Other notable Species that aren't related to the core three **'"Hawks"' as Aenfolk know them aren't the foot-long-at-most birds that you'd know. No, Aen Hawks are 40-foot monsters that people have an instinctual fear of due to their propensity for person-like intelligence, territorial violence and eating people. Some sort of pseudo-curse placed on them by an ancient deity makes them capable of turning human temporarily if socialized, not that that's easy. **'Harpies' are bird-limbed humanoids who were only recently discovered on the whole, and have similarly only recently begun going through the process of integration into society as everyone else knows it. All things considered they've come a long way in such a short time, even if they're still uncommon. **Fae of various kinds are purported to exist just about everywhere one could imagine, and while claims of the extent of their presence are unsubstantiated, the known existence of Fairies, even in their enormously small known numbers, has at least given credence to the idea that other kinds could exist, or perhaps used to. *Important families/groups **The royal family is an obvious one - started by a terrifyingly strong matriarch whose family has led an almost completely unbroken chain of succession and rule since. The one break that splits this chain of rule was itself quickly addressed - civil wars, fun times. **The 11 Mountain Lords and their lines of succession are similarly obvious. **The Pirate Kings of Kalenda haven't done any actual piracy in a long time, but they're still top dogs up there for a reason. Any given one of them has something going for them that put them on top of that heap. **The Aldreon Family is currently the largest Tetraphys family left around out of those who make their numbers public, at just over 22 members if you only count its Tetraphys figures. Its patriarch doesn't seem intent on stopping its growth, though as of the past few years, its growth has been less through children and more through an ever-expanding retainer. Supernatural Stuff *Biomagic **Biomagic is the shorthand for the modern Aen populace's propensity for supernatural powers fueled by their metabolic energy as though they were some kind of body function. Biomagical abilities are always "elementally" associated into eight categories - Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Lightning and Flora, with two special categories in Light and Dark - and any given person can have one or more depending on which ones were allowed to develop over time. If you have a given type, you can manifest or manipulate instances of directly related elements. *Modern mana magic **Mana magic used to be capable of some damn crazy stuff, well beyond what biomagic can do now. In many ways it still is. But nowadays, long after the destruction of large-scale magical society, it's much more limited than it used to be, and most mana-driven magic that people can do now falls into a set of categories as well. On top of that, only a small handful of people are capable of using mana at all - everyone else has a violent biological response to heavy mana exposure, akin to radiation. ***Old-fashioned magic is still around though. The surviving magical lineages have a great deal of lost techniques stored away, and who knows if someone might indirectly rediscover some of the lost things themselves. *Deities **There are 16 "lesser deities" in the Aenverse, though the name is a slight misnomer. These 16 people are exactly that - people who are exemplary enough in their given position's major theme to have gained a spot in a de facto pantheon, a position that comes with perks like unique abilities and immortality. The lesser deities were positions created and granted by a "greater" deity to help her administrate goings on in the world that she's too busy to do herself. That's how it used to be anyway. Nowadays, the positions are a holdover from days when they were necessary, and there's been no real reason to remove them. ***The greater deity in question is much more befitting the title of one. A sun deity of enormous power over her star's area of influence, and appropriately just as venerable - and who won't die until the star does. There used to be a second one, but her star did die and take her with it - sort of. More accurately, the latter's stellar body was absorbed by the former, leading to the associated "deity" not being completely gone - now standing as a sort of underworld judge. The Weird Stuff *Time travel **Yes, it's possible. Not that many people know it's possible. Because it's hard. Damn hard. Time travel is the art of using a lot of energy, far more than it even requires to create a Raised, to "rip a hole in the universe," and create a tunnel through whatever's outside which then doubles back into it. It's not known why doing this this way results in travel backward in time, but the amount of energy provided in excess of what's needed to create the passage in the first place will determine just how far back one's thrown. ***Time travel creates anomalies in the time of departure, their severity dependent on just how much went into it. Tearing holes in the universe will do that. This can range from temporal weirdness like rapid aging in witnesses, to physically impossible phenomena of indeterminate duration, to the accidental incursion of external entities in the worst cases. *Outsiders **Tunnels into and out of universes don't strictly need to double back into their location of origin. Outsiders are people, creatures and things that come into the Aenverse from other universes through similar tunneling, or from the other side of a temporary merge between the two. Doing this intentionally is beyond most universes' ken, but if someone or something becomes aware of an existing verge, nothing's stopping them from utilizing it. Hitchhiker's Guide Guidelines for getting involved, in order of how heavily they'll impact the world. *Making characters for the setting *Making custom races or species *Making new places, in or out of established territory (Coming soon) *Proposing new projects (yes this is allowed) (Coming soon) *Changing established history or the future (Coming later) The setting is ultimately pretty malleable, so if you have an idea for something even if it doesnt fit the guidelines any, you can bring it forward to Catmun or Freyz and see if they're down for it.